Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced

So I know a lot of people don't give half a crap about realism, but even from a gaming standpoint, why would I use the SCAR-H if it has a 20 round mag, costs more than the M16 and yet still does the same damage, even though it shoots 7.62x51 bullets. Same goes for the M14 EBR.
Apparently the G3 which chambers the same calibers does more damage, so I don't exactly understand what's going on here.
So please do boost the damage dealt by at least these weapons.

From a realism stand point I still feel 2-3 shots from a 5.56 is way too much, but the ones I mentioned up above result in unbalanced weapons, which I know is an unholy word in the gaming word.

The SCAR is unrealistic yes, but not unbalanced. If it did more damage it would have to cost more supply points than G3 and FAL, because it has less recoil and now less weight too.

Compare SCAR's stats to AKM's and you see many similarities. Currently the SCAR is like the AKM. It's cheap, fully automatic and kills with 2 shots from longer range than other weapons in the same cost range. SCAR has less recoil, but smaller magazine.

The M14 costs the most (5 points) yet it does the same damage as the SCAR-H. They use the same caliber. They both have 20 round capacity mags. The AK47 like you mentioned uses a 30 round mag. How is this balanced?
The SCAR does not have a noticeably lesser recoil, since I shot the AK47 full auto running around like an idiot, and racking up kills easily. The AK47 also does a little bit more damage, since I couldn't manage to kill an enemy with 1 shot to the chest with the SCAR-H, while the AK47 can kill an enemy with 1 shot to the chest. Start playing with all these guns I mentioned then check out the statistics.
With the SCAR-H I calculated a 0.44 kill rate (where 1.0 hit rate is 1 shot 1 kill), with the M4 I calculated a 0.45.
I checked out the M24 but not even that was 1.0.
The other gun I forgot to mention is the MP7. It's new 4.6x30 round was supposed to be a smaller rifle round and yet in game it's represented as weaker than a 9mm.

So please NWI, even though my heart is aching that you're not going for realism anymore, I can kind of understand that the majority of people don't like realism, but at least give proper balance to weapons. Why would anyone use the MP7 or the SCAR after all these nerfings? They are useless junk in game.

Remember, the game bases its balance mostly on physics, using joules, muzzle energy, etc to produce the performance of a given platform.

SCAR-H with it's shorter barrel than the M14 will have less muzzle energy and because of it, it will have less joules on impact meaning less damage and less penetration too, it has a shorter barrel so it makes it more wieldy in closer quarters, it has controls that allow it to be more user friendly and do quicker reloads and such, another point of note when it comes to supply cost.
G3 has a longer barrel than the SCAR so it gets more velocity and thus more joules on impact but has less user-friendly controls, so it has more potent performance with less practical things punishing it when it comes to reloads and such.
All this also plays into penetration of the rounds, what they can go through and what will stop it based on how fast the round is going etc.
5.56x45mm/.223 is fast but can be stopped, not the same potency as a 7.62x51mm or .308, or for that matter 7.62x54R.. it doesn't have the same weight to it so it won't hit that hard, but because of it that means it doesn't need as much powder ignited to get it up to speeds meaning that it will also have less recoil due to less explosive force from the expanding propellant gasses required.

Kinetic energy from a 5.56 projectile moving close to the same speed as a 7.62 projectile is about 2/3rds, a number vastly lower in terms of direct energy delivery on target, and the larger projectile of the 7.62 would also have better hydrostatic displacement and expansion on flesh.

All that being said, there is the point of note to be mentioned, that I wish they would put the "long barrel" option back into the game.. so players can choose to spend more supply points on getting more velocity but losing weapon mobility while they're at it (but it should cost more than the 1 supply it did previously, it should at least be 2 supply minimum, but would also be nice if there was a short-barrel option as well... but that's a topic for a separate thread).

The SCAR is about 85m/s slower velocity than a G3, and I think about 140m/s lower than the M14 EBR if I'm not mistaken.. so the SCAR will not carry the same energy on target, it just simply won't. Don't complain about weapon damage if you don't understand why the devs have done it as they have, just because you're used to how other games have used arbitrary numbers (like call of duty and battlefield).

The devs have done a good job with the reasoning for why individual guns perform (damage-wise and penetration-wise) as they do.
Please don't complain if you haven't even read what the weapon-stats say on each weapon's stats, that's on the right side of the screen as you pick them and alter their performance via attachment etc.

last edited by Mainfold

So we're just mentioning weapon characteristics and justifying game bugs now?
Okay I'm done, seriously.
You people would even try to explain how the moon landing is fake with statistics that just doesn't have any correlation.

Read/Watch a few articles what certain bullet calibers do to a human being and than you'll realise you can easily ignore barrel length. So basically what you're saying with these barrel lengths is that if a weapon's barrel was much shorter, it'd deal a lot less damage. I do wonder if you'd feel the difference being shot with a standard 16" barrel length SCAR or a SCAR CQC with the 13" barrel. "Oh no I'm fine, the guy only had a short barrel, nothing to worry about"

Also don't quite understand why you're comparing the M14 to the SCAR when I mentioned they act exactly the same in game (which is a problem)
I mentioned the AKM vs the SCAR.

And back to weapon statistics, first of all you can't check certain weapon statistics in games like CoD or BF (as far as I know, since I don't play them), however you can in Insurgency. And guess what Insurgency tries to "sell me" there? You won't guess it, but according to Sandstorm the 7.62x51 is significantly stronger than the 5.56x45. Holy crap how is that possible, because in game the 5.56 clearly deals the same damage as the 7.62x51 if the weapon is the SCAR or the M14.
But I'm sure you have a conspiracy theory for this as well lol

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TL;DR version:
Grow a brain, I can't deal with stupidity...

@sgt-kanyo said in Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced:

Read/Watch a few articles what certain bullet calibers do to a human being and than you'll realise you can easily ignore barrel length.

Totally wrong. Velocity has a significant impact on projectile lethality. It's a lot more noticeable with lighter and faster rounds like 5.56mm, but it's a factor with any projectile. Velocity is the far greater component of kinetic energy. It's why SOCOM started looking at heavier 77gr projectiles to offset the loss in lethality they observed with short barreled Mk.18s.

Granted, shot placement is the most important factor in lethality, but that's not really modeled in the game at all.

I do feel like the SCAR-H is too weak though. Sure, the M-14 has a long barrel, but the difference between the Mk.17 and G3A3 is only ~1.5"

First of all, the Long Barrel attachment is gonna stay gone. The reason it was removed is because some battle rifles became one-hit wonders with it equipped, completely ignoring enemy armor.

Second, the M14 EBR is far deadlier than the SCAR-H with more damage and firerate. It can one-shot unarmored players and possibly players with Light Armor; haven't tested it recently.

G3A3 does do more damage than the SCAR-H, I believe, but it has less firerate and a far slower empty reload speed. It can at least one-shot unarmored players, though lmao.

As @Action83 said, the SCAR-H is basically an AKM. That being said, that makes no fucking sense because it's worse than the AKM in every regard. The SCAR-H doesn't have less recoil than the AK, that's for damn sure. Even if it did, the smaller mag means you have to spend five supply just for a gun that's kind of on par with the AKM, and at that point, just buy a fucking Mk 18 or L85A2.

Velocity does play a role in how much "damage" weapons deal, but if it's not calculated correctly you end up with a disgusting damage model. For instance, at one point the L106A1 pistol was capable of two-shotting Heavy Armor in CQB, which basically made the Colt .45 pointless until it was patched.

@Mainfodl Sandstorm has some realistic elements, but it still has some more arcade-y ones, too. NWI doesn't want to implement a Red Orchestra 2 or Escape From Tarkov style damage model because it doesn't fit with what Insurgency stands for. Insurgency is extremely simple: "Aim at an enemy, pull the trigger, and watch the body drop".

last edited by MarksmanMax

@sgt-kanyo said in Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced:

So we're just mentioning weapon characteristics and justifying game bugs now?

What game bug are you referring to?
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The SCAR-H in Sandstorm is the 13 inch barrel variant, the shortest normal configuration for it, the G3 is the standard 17.7 inch variant, and the M14 EBR is the 18 inch barrel variant (not the 22 inch one that would have even higher velocity), so @MAA_Bunny you may want to reassess that.

@MarksmanMax It can like any attachment be only given to certain guns, where the ones that excel beyond reason can be excluded from that shortlist. And yes, the AKM's velocity is 715m/s so the SCAR-H is functioning basically exactly like the AKM with near identical numbers, giving it the same penetration etc making it pretty crap to have overall when you'd be stuck with just more recoil from the extra gasses in the 7.62x51mm over the 7.62x39mm on the AKM.. arguably the SCAR-H is a waste of a weapon to have in the game in it's current configuration when even the SKS will have better sheer per-round performance, SVD certain outperforms it too on a sheer per-round performance basis as well.

..also .45 is a trash round and anyone that likes it should feel bad when it can be vastly outperformed by a 10mm out of a glock 20 lol

last edited by Mainfold

@mainfold said in Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced:

The SCAR-H in Sandstorm is the 13 inch barrel variant, the shortest normal configuration

Is it? I thought it was the standard version with the 16" barrel, but I don't have the game in front of me to check the model. The CQC version is pretty short.

@maa_bunny Yep, 13 inch variant, so yeah.. the 16 inch would have more of a function but alas tis not. Which is why it feels like an absolute waste to have in the game unless they give it access to some pretty unique attachments, like the FN40GL 40mm grenade launcher with explosive rounds as the only gun advisers have with a 40mm explosive launcher or something out of the ordinary, because in it's current config it is a waste.

@mainfold said in Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced:

@maa_bunny Yep, 13 inch variant

Yes it is, huh. I got thrown by the giant muzzle device on it, but looking at it critically now, it sure is the CQC version.

That actually makes me feel a little better. It makes it stand out a little more from the G3 and FAL being a shorter but weaker 7.62mm.

Just checked, you guys are right, it is the short barrel version (not to be confused with the SCAR-L CQC's barrel which looks even shorter).
However I remember that the SCAR was made as a replacement for the M4 since people complained the M4's 5.56 sometimes takes 2 rounds to kill a haji. So they needed something with more stopping power.
Imagine getting an AR that has less mag capacity, much lower RPM (600 vs 900) and less or similar stopping power.
This picture comes to my mind:
alt text

So yeah, please even though it has a shorter barrel, it still outperforms 5.56 by miles in term of stopping power. It's a bigger bullet, 715 m/s is still an insane amount of speed that a bullet can carry, since even the 9mm's puny 381 m/s can go through your body. A well placed 7.62x51 bullet can tear your arm off if placed at the right part of your body. The .50 can literally tear a hole in your body as big as your head. Bullets aren't designed to politely ask you to refuse to fight, they are designed to kill.
And the fact that in this game the AKM needs to be compared to the SCAR-H and even worse the SCAR loses is just pathetic. The SCAR is a much more modern weapon. What do you guys think the men and women are doing developing these guns? Are they trying to reduce their CO2 emissions? Are they trying to give these weapons built in coffee machines? Maybe a built in umbrella, for those rainy days. No, they are working on making these guns more and more lethal and dependable.

@MarksmanMax
In CTE what I noticed is that the M14 EBR takes 2 shots to the body as well. Not once could I kill a bot with 1 single shot to the chest.

Anyway you guys can check out how each weapon performs, by looking into Profile -> Weapons and check your accuracy, your kills and shots fired. Also make sure you don't count headshots, since this game is so realistic, headshots actually are 1 shot 1 kill.
So you get shots fired, multiply it with your accuracy/100 and then you divide your number of kill with this number. And you'll get a number like I did for the SCAR (0.44) and the M4 (0.45). Like I mentioned before 1.0 is 1 shot 1 kill.

@sgt-kanyo the SCAR-program was made to find a replacement for the M4 & M16, FN's submission were the FN SCAR Mk.16 & Mk.17 ("SCAR-L" in 5.56x45 & "SCAR-H" in 7.62x51), needless to say.... they failed to meet the requirements. But they have still had some still in use.
However later down the line H&K scored the bigger contract, which is why the HK416 has made its way in (starting out as the M27 infantry automatic rifle, sort of their idea of using it as a quasi-SAW replacement) and later on the HK417 as well.
Pretty easy for H&K to get in with them already being "in" with other weapons (sidearms, SMG's etc), and the HK416&HK417 were basically familiar platforms very close to the M4 & M16 with reliability upgrades and such (making it an easy contract to sign, as it was basically like taking an old car and putting newer running gear in it).
There was a niche where the SCAR tried to still get an "in", with the SCAR-L Personal Defense Weapon shorty gun, to which H&K also had an answer in the form of the HK416C and their already contracted MP7 obviously lol.

I hope the adviser and marksman get the HK417 in the future (G28 for the marksman class obviously, and the normal HK417 A2 for the adviser), but devs will have to consider what they want to put in on their own (even the shorty versions of the 417 have quite a lot more muzzle velocity than the SCAR's do, even the short 13 inch HK417 has 742m/s, but 775m/s with the standard 16.5 inch one.. and 817~m/s or so with the 20 inch G28 or 20 inch A2 variants).

@mainfold said in Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced:

@MarksmanMax It can like any attachment be only given to certain guns, where the ones that excel beyond reason can be excluded from that shortlist.

Well, it really only makes sense for long-range weapons, and the Long Barrel made the M14 EBR one-shot to at least 150 meters which made the M24 pretty useless.

That being said, I did suggest that the Long Barrel attachment should come as a default upgrade to both bolt-action rifles to actually give people a reason to use them.

..also .45 is a trash round and anyone that likes it should feel bad when it can be vastly outperformed by a 10mm out of a glock 20 lol

Ehh... I'd debate that but I'm no ballistics expert. I have heard that 10mm actually performs similarly to a .357 magnum round ballistics-wise, which is why 10mm is pretty damn good. .45 ACP is still a good cartridge, though. All American SMGs in World War II, as well as their sidearm, were chambered in that caliber.

The SVD just outperforms anything, honestly lmao.

The SCAR-H still needs a damage increase drastically. At least make it one-shot players with no armor at all as well as Light Armor.

The HK series of AR-weapons might get added as an Advisor weapon, but overall it's extremely similar to the standard M4 weapons already in-game. That being said, it would make sense to balance out the Alpha AK (although Insurgents would still need a counter to the SCAR-H [kinda] and the L85A2).

@marksmanmax Can give AK's the long barrel back, because it made them have an RPK-function even though they became completely useless in any form of close quarters after it because of animations from being "too close" to things all the time.

On the list of weapons I can see it having a value, it would be:

  • AK-based ones (AKM, AK74, Alpha AK)
  • further increasing length on long-range guns like the SVD for less drop at a distance
  • G36 to get the long forend with the bipod
  • M16 to give it the M16 LSW forend (lmg-style forend, could even be for the M4 for that matter, but.. mostly M16)
  • M16 for marksman-class to get the SR-25 one
  • Shotguns for tighter spread
  • For M249 possibly, though would much rather it then also get the short one as well

Those won't be "broken" from it but instead get a specific use-case area where you can apply the attachment that would otherwise be undesired, for the extra cost (obviously 3 supply).

On the note of the thing with .45, what it is good for is being a "by default" subsonic round (in pistols though) so they will be far quieter when suppressed, no crackle, making it the most desired round for suppressing overall. SMG comes from the name that it was subsonic (hence the sub part of sub machine gun).
SVD is pretty legit indeed, and it surprises me how few use it!
SCAR-H in it's current form should not be touched whatsoever, it should just be straight up replaced or removed.
There's plenty of guns the Insurgents could get that would make perfect sense for adviser, like the legendary vz.58, a long list of ww2 stuff, the vietname era CAR-15 GUU-5P variant with 1000rpm cyclic rate, galil, there's no shortage of options exactly.. SCAR-H just has to go as it is mostly useless as is (and increasing it's barrel length makes it less wieldy than just replacing it and giving it to the observer as a SCAR 20S to give the observer some variety).

@mainfold The SCAR-H doesn't need to go; it just has to be buffed or something. At least give it the power of the G3A3 or FAL.

@sgt-kanyo said in Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced:

However I remember that the SCAR was made as a replacement for the M4 since people complained the M4's 5.56 sometimes takes 2 rounds to kill a haji. So they needed something with more stopping power.

Kinda, but not really. The SCAR-H was used by Rangers and SOCOM in Afghanistan because 5.56mm looses a lot of lethality at longer ranges, like over 300m. Engagement ranges in Afghanistan tended to be beyond the range where 5.56mm was most effective. But overall the US military has been happy with 5.56mm and the AR platform for a very long time, and weapons like the SCAR haven't seen wide service because they offer very little advantage over the current rifles. When the Army does replace the M4, it'll be with something very, drastically, different.

So yeah, please even though it has a shorter barrel, it still outperforms 5.56 by miles in term of stopping power.

Not necessarily, at least not at short range. Within 300m or so (depending on barrel length) 5.56mm's high velocity fragmentation can be quite devastating. Terminal ballistics is more complicated than "bigger bullet = bigger wound." At the engagement ranges we typically encounter in Sandstorm, 7.62 NATO isn't going to have a massive advantage in lethality over 5.56 NATO. Of course, like always, shot placement is the most important factor in lethality. Either round to the face or center torso will cause you to have a very bad day.

last edited by MAA_Bunny

@marksmanmax If you want that you can just switch to rifleman-class and use that, no limit on number of rifleman-class users there can be, so that's not even a useful argument against not removing it..

@maa_bunny said in Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced:

Not necessarily, at least not at short range. Within 300m or so (depending on barrel length) 5.56mm's high velocity fragmentation can be quite devastating. Terminal ballistics is more complicated than "bigger bullet = bigger wound." At the engagement ranges we typically encounter in Sandstorm, 7.62 NATO isn't going to have a massive advantage in lethality over 5.56 NATO. Of course, like always, shot placement is the most important factor in lethality. Either round to the face or center torso will cause you to have a very bad day.

Well if the 5.56 round had a realistic damage model, meaning 1 shot to the torso = death, then it'd be no problem.
Also I have never heard a 5.56 tear of someone's arm, while the 7.62 can do that.

Also guys please stop this velocity nonsense. How would you explain the MP7's 715 m/s velocity, even though it has such short barrel. Let's not forget the MP7 needs a massive boost in dealt damage, since as of now it's weaker than 9mm, even though it should be as lethal as the 5.56. That's what those rounds were designed for.

@sgt-kanyo said in Weapon damage still unrealistic and unbalanced:

Well if the 5.56 round had a realistic damage model, meaning 1 shot to the torso = death, then it'd be no problem.
Also I have never heard a 5.56 tear of someone's arm, while the 7.62 can do that.

Do you have any evidence for 7.62mm tearing someone's arm off? I've never heard of it happening in real life (though both 7.62mm and 5.56mm can cause enough damage to require surgical amputation of limbs, that's a different thing.)

One shot to the torso could mean death. Or it could not. There's a lot of complexities that go into influencing what happens when a body gets shot. There's no such thing as a reliable one-shot-stop. The only hard and fast rule is: when someone is trying to kill you, shoot them until they stop. How many rounds that takes is of secondary concern at most.

Also guys please stop this velocity nonsense. How would you explain the MP7's 715 m/s velocity, even though it has such short barrel.

Velocity isn't nonsense, velocity is the key wounding mechanic for small light bullets and the key mechanic for armor penetration. Velocity also makes bullets fly flatter trajectories so the shooter doesn't need to compensate for drop as much. Velocity is very important for projectiles.

How do I explain what about the MP7? It fires a light projectile with a lot of power behind it. Sandstorm isn't making up numbers, depending on the cartridge the muzzle velocity for the real-life MP7 is between 600m/s (42gr projectile) and 735m/s (31gr projectile).

There's not a ton of evidence for the effectiveness of 4.6x30mm, but there are many anecdotal accounts of it being poor. It's absolutely not as lethal at 5.56 NATO. It was designed to be more effective at penetrating body armor than 9mm, which it does quite well, but at the cost of lethality. The idea was the MP7 would make up for a lack of projectile lethality by being able to put more rounds on target quickly. Sandstorm actually models this quite well I think, individually the rounds may be weak, but with a high rate of fire and controllable gun, it's not too difficult to hit someone enough times to take them out.